High school senior Ferris Bueller (Matthew Broderick) decides to skip school on a spring day by faking an illness to his parents (Lyman Ward and Cindy Pickett), then encourages his girlfriend Sloane (Mia Sara) and his pessimistic best friend Cameron (Alan Ruck) to spend the day in Chicago as one of their last flings before they head off to different colleges. Ferris persuades Cameron to let them use his father’s restored convertible 1961 Ferrari 250 GT California to travel into the city. The rest of the school and many residents learn of Ferris’s exaggerated illness and offer donations to help “Save Ferris”. Only two people are not convinced by Ferris’s deception: his often sarcastic sister Jeanie (Jennifer Grey), outraged at Ferris’s ability to defy authority easily, and the school’s Dean of Students, Edward Rooney (Jeffrey Jones), who believes Ferris to be truant.

Ferris and his friends arrive downtown and leave the Ferrari with two garage attendants (Richard Edson and Larry Jenkins), who drive off in it a short while later to take a joyride. Ferris, Sloane and Cameron enjoy many sights of the city, including taking in a game at Wrigley Field, visiting the Sears Tower, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and taking part in the Von Steuben Day Parade, with Ferris lip-syncing to “Danke Schoen” and The Beatles’ version of “Twist and Shout.” Ferris also uses his ploys to pretend he is Abe Froeman, the Sausage King of Chicago, to dine at an upscale restaurant, Chez Quis, on Rush Street (while narrowly avoiding Ferris’s father, who is on his way to lunch with business associates).

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As the credits are rolling, Mr. Rooney in his disheveled state is invited by the bus driver to catch a ride back to school on a school bus as it drives students home. And in the tag at the very end of the credits, Ferris emerges from the bathroom, pleading directly with the audience, “You’re still here? It’s over! Go home! Go!” before he turns around and goes into the bathroom again.

In the summer of 1963, 17-year-old New Yorker Frances “Baby” Houseman (Jennifer Grey) is vacationing with her affluent Jewish family at Kellerman’s[3], a resort in the Catskill Mountains. Baby is planning to attend Mount Holyoke College to study economics and then enter the Peace Corps. She was named after Frances Perkins, the first woman in the U.S. Cabinet. Baby’s father, Jake (Jerry Orbach), is the personal physician of the resort owner Max Kellerman (Jack Weston).

Baby develops a crush on the resort’s dance instructor Johnny Castle (Patrick Swayze), part of the working-class entertainment staff. When Baby, while carrying a watermelon, is invited to one of their parties, she observes for the first time the “dirty dancing” that the staff enjoys. Later, Baby discovers that Johnny’s dance partner Penny Johnson (Cynthia Rhodes) is distraught over being pregnant by Robbie Gould (Max Cantor), the waiter whom Baby’s sister Lisa is dating. When Baby learns that Robbie plans to do nothing about the pregnancy, she secures the money from her father to pay for Penny’s illegal abortion. In her efforts to help, Baby also becomes Penny’s fill-in for a performance at the Sheldrake, a nearby resort where Johnny and Penny perform annually.

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In the film’s climactic scene, Johnny, even though he has been fired, returns to the resort to perform the final dance of the season with Baby. Excoriating the Housemans for their choice of Baby’s seat, he utters the film’s most famous line, “Nobody puts Baby in a corner,” as he pulls her up from the family’s table. Dr. Houseman learns that the true culprit in Penny’s pregnancy was Robbie, not Johnny, and he apologizes (Robbie having accidentally confessed to his deed earlier in the scene, while talking to Dr. Houseman). The film ends with a major dance sequence, as Baby overcomes her fears to allow Johnny to lift her high into the air, and the room is transformed into a nightclub where everyone, staff and patrons, dances together.